It is the end of September 2026 and the autumn session of the TOLC-E is open, with remaining places until November: if you register in these days, you sit the test in four to eight weeks. If this window doesn’t suit you, the next one is the winter-spring one (February-May), and the calls for the degree courses for 2027/28 come out between October 2026 and January 2027 — it is worth keeping an eye on them anyway, because that is where you read whether your course looks at your best score or your last attempt.
The TOLC-E doesn’t reward those who know the most maths. It is a test with little time per question (two and a half minutes on average across the sections that count towards the score) and with maths of a modest level. You win by making fewer mistakes, not by knowing more. This post is built on that idea: section strategy, when it is worth answering even without being sure, and which topics really come back.
How the test is built
The TOLC-E, run by the CISIA consortium (the body that organises the TOLC tests for Italian universities), is taken TOLC@CASA (online from home, with supervision) or in person, depending on what the university you have chosen provides. You book from the reserved area of cisiaonline.it and it costs €35 per session, non-refundable. It consists of three subject sections plus an English section:
- Logic — 13 questions, 30 minutes (2 minutes 18 seconds per question)
- Verbal comprehension — 10 questions, 30 minutes (3 minutes per question)
- Maths — 13 questions, 30 minutes (2 minutes 18 seconds per question)
- English — 30 questions, 15 minutes, common to all TOLC tests, no penalty
Total of the sections that count towards the score: 36 questions in 90 minutes. The score is calculated like this: +1 for a correct answer, 0 for a skipped question, −0.25 for a wrong answer. How much your result counts and for how long it stays valid depends on the individual call: your course may look at the best score among several attempts or at the last one — it is not a CISIA rule that is the same for everyone, so check it on your course’s call before deciding how many times to retake the test. You can retake the TOLC-E no more than once per calendar month for this type of test.
Look at the numbers carefully: in no section do you have more than three minutes per question, and in two you have a little over two. It is not a test that leaves you time to “think it over” for long on each question. The English section, with no penalty, has to be treated the opposite way: always answer everything, even at random, because there a mistake costs nothing — as a rule it only serves to see whether you are assigned a language training requirement, it does not enter into the score of the other three sections.
When it is worth answering even when unsure
The −0.25 penalty scares more than it should. The calculation is simple and worth doing once, for all the sessions you will sit. TOLC questions have 5 options. If you can eliminate options as definitely wrong, the expected value of answering at random among the remaining is:
| Options eliminated () | Options left | Expected value |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 5 | 0 |
| 1 | 4 | +0.06 |
| 2 | 3 | +0.17 |
| 3 | 2 | +0.38 |
| 4 | 1 | +1 (certain answer) |
Without eliminating anything, answering at random and leaving it blank give exactly the same expected result: zero. But it is enough to eliminate one blatantly wrong option for the expected value to become positive. The practical rule: if you have even a vague idea of why an option is wrong, answer. If the question is completely obscure to you and all 5 options look plausible, skip — there the risk is not compensated by anything.
Maths: the topics that really come up
The level required is that of the first to third years of the three-year high school stretch, without the more advanced topics of the other science TOLC tests. What comes back every session:
- Percentages and proportions. Successive increases and discounts, percentage change, proportional sharing. This is the ground where most time is lost through haste, not ignorance. If proportions need redoing from the basics, there is Proportions and percentages in Year 1 of high school.
- Powers and radicals. Properties, simple rationalisation, expressions with fractional exponents.
- First- and second-degree equations and inequalities, including fractional inequalities with sign study, and systems.
- The linear function and the line in the plane. Slope, intersections, conditions for parallelism and perpendicularity: here the questions are often “at a glance”, solvable without calculation if you know the form of the equation.
- Basic exponentials and logarithms. Elementary properties, simple equations.
- Elements of probability and descriptive statistics. Favourable cases over possible cases, mean, median, mode, an idea of how an outlier moves the mean without moving the median.
- Essential analytic geometry. Distance between two points, midpoint, equation of the line through two points.
With 13 questions in 30 minutes, the section rewards those who immediately recognise the type of exercise instead of starting to write. Questions on percentages and the linear function are generally the quickest to close: do them first.
Logic: how to really train it
The logic of the TOLC-E is not an intelligence test, it is a test of form. The types that come back:
- Deductions from premises. Given one or more statements, work out what follows necessarily and what doesn’t.
- Necessary and sufficient conditions. “If A then B” is not the same as “if B then A”: the illicit inversion is by far the most frequent distractor.
- Negation of a statement. The negation of “all the students passed the test” is “at least one student did not pass it”, not “no student passed it”. Those who confuse these two statements go wrong systematically, not occasionally.
- Number series. Calculate the differences between consecutive terms; if they say nothing, try the ratios; if those say nothing either, try alternation between two interleaved series.
- Numerical reasoning problems. Proportions, speeds and times, sharing: they are solved by setting up the right relationship, not by complicating the calculations.
Those who are good at maths tend to underestimate this section, thinking it “trivial”. It is not trivial in difficulty, it is in structure: the questions are designed to be quick once recognised, slow if you tackle them as new problems every time.
Verbal comprehension: you read, you don’t already know
Ten questions, thirty minutes, three minutes per question — it is the section with the most time available, and not by chance: the passages have to be read calmly, but with a precise method. The mistake that costs the most is answering with what you already know about the subject instead of with what the text says. The classic distractor is a statement that is true in the real world but not supported by the passage: if you can’t point to the line that confirms it, it is not the right answer. Read the question first, then the passage looking for that line: it is slower the first time you do it, faster from then on.
The English section: what you need to know about it
The 30 questions in 15 minutes assess a general language level and are used by the university to decide whether to assign you a training requirement; typically they do not enter into the score of the three subject sections and carry no penalty for mistakes. The practical consequence is clear-cut: always answer all 30 questions, even by intuition, because leaving them blank has no advantage and can only lower the level you are credited with.
Three worked exercises
1. Maths — percentages. The price of a book is increased by 25% and, on the new price, a 20% discount is applied. Compared with the initial price, the final price is: (A) increased by 5% — (B) unchanged — (C) increased by 10% — (D) decreased by 5% — (E) decreased by 10%
A 25% increase multiplies the price by 1.25. A 20% discount on the new price multiplies by 0.80. The overall factor is:
The final price is exactly equal to the initial one: answer (B). The trap is thinking that +25% and −20% add algebraically (giving +5%): with successive percentages you multiply the factors, you don’t add the changes.
2. Logic — necessary and sufficient condition. The following statement holds: “If a student passes the TOLC with more than 30 points, then he or she is admitted without a training requirement.” Which of the following is certainly true? (A) Those admitted without a requirement scored more than 30 points — (B) Those who scored less than 30 points are not admitted — (C) Those not admitted without a requirement scored 30 points or fewer — (D) Those who score exactly 30 points are admitted without a requirement — (E) None of the above
The only logically valid transformation of “if A then B” is its contrapositive, “if not B then not A”. Here: if you are not admitted without a requirement (not B), then you did not score more than 30 points (not A), that is, you scored 30 points or fewer. Answer (C). (A) and (B) are the illicit inversion of the condition (they swap premise and conclusion) and are not guaranteed by the text; (D) is not covered because the premise speaks of “more than 30”, not “at least 30”.
3. Descriptive statistics — mean, median and outliers. Seven students get these scores in a TOLC-E mock exam: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 20, 5. Calculate the mean and the median, then redo the calculation imagining that the “5” was actually a “25” entered by a transcription error.
With the 5: the sum is , the mean is . Ordering the values — 5, 18, 19, 20, 20, 21, 22 — the median (the fourth value out of seven) is 20.
With 25 in place of 5: the sum becomes , the mean . Ordering — 18, 19, 20, 20, 21, 22, 25 — the median stays at 20.
One single anomalous data point moved the mean by almost 3 points, but the median didn’t budge: that is why, when a value looks out of scale, the median is the most reliable measure to look at.
To train on questions like these with real timing and marking, use the free TOLC-E mock exam: the correct answer is free, the guided solution unlocks with your first lesson.
An eight-week plan
Week 1 — diagnosis. One complete timed mock exam. The goal is not the score: it is the list of errors with precise names (“fractional inequalities”, “negation of universal statements”, “successive percentages”), not generic ones like “maths” or “logic”.
Weeks 2-3 — maths in blocks. Percentages and proportions → powers and radicals → equations and inequalities → linear function and line → exponentials and logarithms → probability and descriptive statistics → analytic geometry. Don’t move on to the next block below 70-80% correct exercises.
Weeks 4-5 — logic. Deductions, necessary/sufficient conditions, negations, number series, numerical reasoning problems. Here volume counts more than theory: 20-25 questions a day, corrected one by one, asking yourself why you got them wrong.
Week 6 — verbal comprehension + maths-logic consolidation. One timed passage a day, plus targeted revision on the weak points that have emerged so far.
Week 7 — full mock exams. Two or three, timed by section, reviewed question by question.
Week 8 — light revision only. Maths formula sheet on one page, logic diagram (necessary/sufficient conditions, negations), a last mock exam mid-week and then stop. The night before counts more than an extra hour of study.
How we work in lessons
I always start from a diagnosis: we use the first hour for a mini-test reasoned through together, to understand not only what you get wrong but why — whether theory is missing, method is missing, or it is time management under the clock. From there we build a weekly plan that alternates maths, logic and mock exams reviewed together question by question, online with a graphics tablet and shared screen.
If you are also aiming at Bocconi in parallel, the basics overlap quite a lot: the point-by-point comparison is in Bocconi test or TOLC-E: which to prepare for. And if you want to understand in detail how your raw score becomes a ranking, here is how it is calculated. If your university instead uses a test of its own, there are guides to the LUISS test and to Cattolica’s TIEC; for Psychology and Political Science, the TOLC-PSI and the TOLC-SPS share logic and text comprehension with this test.
For the full picture of the tests I prepare for, see the Admission tests page; for the subject alone, maths.
If you want to understand where to start, I offer you a free introductory call: you tell me where you are, and I tell you honestly how many weeks you need and on what.
The TOLC-E is a test that asks for solid basics handled quickly, not advanced knowledge. Those who prepare for it for what it is — an exercise in precision under time pressure — pass it with room to spare. You can put yourself under strain with the free mock exam before the real day.
